


quiet comes the night

by shanlyrical



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Dathomir (Star Wars), Deception, F/M, Forbidden Love, Mating Rituals, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:40:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25657564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shanlyrical/pseuds/shanlyrical
Summary: “How much longer?”“Not much longer. Be patient. We’ll have our chance soon.”
Relationships: Original Dathomirian Nightbrother Character(s)/Original Dathomirian Nightsister Character(s)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11
Collections: Rare Pairs Exchange 2020





	quiet comes the night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inquisitor_tohru](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inquisitor_tohru/gifts).



“Yield,” Anikkah said.

Mangle bared his teeth and snarled up at her, like he would bite her face clean off if he could. Anikkah responded to this continued show of aggression by grinding her foot into Mangle’s chest. She did not skimp on the viciousness, and the pressure was almost – but not quite – enough to break Mangle’s ribs.

“Yield,” she repeated. “Or die.” The tip of her blade rested against the tattooed skin at the base of Mangle’s throat. She applied the tiniest bit more pressure, creating an indent in Mangle’s exposed, vulnerable flesh. Anikkah held herself perfectly still and waited. The wait seemed an eternity. She watched as a bead of blood, ruby red against somber gray, welled up and began to roll, slowly, slowly, ever so very slowly, down the side of Mangle’s neck. It was a perfect sphere hanging in the air, and then it tumbled into Dathomir’s bone-dry, sandy soil and promptly disappeared.

“I…” It came out as a choked wheeze. Almost impossible to hear, let alone comprehend. Anikkah repositioned her foot so that Mangle could bring just enough air into his lungs to breathe. To speak the requisite words. “ _I yield_ ,” he hissed.

Anikkah sheathed her blade and removed her foot from Mangle’s chest with a theatrical flourish. Subdued at last. He lay prostate in the dust for a moment, to further emphasize his submission to his Witch. Then, laboriously, as if only by sheer force of will was he able to overcome the white-bright agony of the injuries he had incurred in the duel, he rose to his feet unaided.

Mangle’s brothers, the Nightbrother tribe which had borne witness to this defeat, erupted in raucous cheers: Mangle had been Selected as a Nightsister’s – Anikkah’s – mate, and his seed would quicken the next generation of Dathomiri Zabrak. For a male of their race, there was no greater honor.

“Let’s go,” Anikkah said. She did not acknowledge the Nightbrothers’ approbation, nor did she check to make certain Mangle would follow her as they made their departure from the only home he’d ever known. She simply expected that he would.

And, of course, he did.

* * *

“How much longer?”

“Not much longer. Be patient. We’ll have our chance soon.”

* * *

The coven was already gathered when Anikkah returned to the Nightsisters’ fortress.

“Welcome, Daughter. Welcome, Mangle,” Mother Talzin said.

Anikkah got down onto her knees. Mangle, following her example, did the same just behind her right shoulder. He’d situated himself perfectly, right on the edge of her peripheral vision so that she did not need to turn her head to know that he was present with her. “I have made my Selection, Mother, and bring him before you now. Mangle fought me singlehandedly for over half a rotation before he was made to yield, and thus I deemed him worthy,” she declared, her tone of voice formal. This was also in accordance with Dathomiri tradition. “Does he meet with your approval?”

“If Mangle has met with your approval, Daughter, then he meets with mine.” This was the standard response. Everything so far was going according to plan. “Do you intend to claim him as servant or as mate?”

“As mate, Mother,” Anikkah answered. She schooled her expression to cool confidence, her voice to casual arrogance. She wanted the coven to understand that this was her decision, that she was of age, that she would not take kindly to being be gainsaid. She resisted the temptation to reach for the hilt of her weapon.

Mother Talzin nodded subtly, a private gesture from parent to child. Anikkah felt the tightly wound tension in her chest begin to uncoil and release. Then Mother Talzin threw out her arms and began to speak, her declaration – and final decision – reverberating off of the fortress’s stone walls: “The coven accepts Anikkah-Nightsister’s mating claim, and she shall be opened to receive new life forthwith.”

Dathomir’s glowing green magic was already gathering. Behind her, Mangle was fidgeting nervously, but Anikkah herself remained as still as a statue, allowing the smoky tendrils to brush her ankles. As if they were alive and had caught scent of what they pursued, they rose further, to cover her, to engulf her, to penetrate and fill her.

This was great magic. Dark magic. Dangerous magic. Anikkah was being filled, filled, _over_ filled, and no witch, not even Mother Talzin herself, could not contain it within herself for long. When after an instant, after an eternity, she was compelled to release it back into the planet where it belonged, the force of the expulsion was so great that she felt as if she were being torn apart.

* * *

“Anikkah? Anikkah? Are you all right?”

She returned to consciousness gradually. Mangle was at her side, his face crumpled with worry. He helped her sit up. Quickly, she assessed their surroundings. They were alone, in a narrow, private chamber meant for mating. This was good; this was what they had expected.

Anikkah turned her senses inward. She knew she’d been changed by Dathomir’s magic – made more fertile. Any offspring she birthed would be much more likely to survive and to be fertile themselves. Prioritizing power meant that their population was too small, their gene pool too restricted. Absent such eldritch intervention, the Dathomiri Zabrak would have certainly died out generations ago. Strangely, though, she didn’t _feel_ any different. “I’m all right…I think,” Anikkah said cautiously.

Mangle breathed a sigh of relief and wrapped his thickly muscled arms around her. “We did it,” he said.

Anikkah smiled happily and reciprocated his embrace. “We did.”

And they had – they’d made fools of them all, Nightsisters and Nightbrothers alike. Where Dathomiri society made no allowances for gentleness or affection or love, Anikkah and Mangle were deeply in love with one another. Anikkah didn’t just want a servant or a mate. What she wanted, what she truly wanted, was a life partner. An equal. And Mangle wouldn’t be satisfied spending his life subservient to a Witch, either. No, the two of them wanted to spend the rest of their lives together.

She pulled back from Mangle only reluctantly. This was the chance they’d been waiting for, a time when they would be left unsupervised for long enough – on the assumption that they would be, ahem, otherwise occupied – to make their escape from Dathomir. To start a family, to live the life they chose – they would do that, _together_.

“Let’s go,” Anikkah said.


End file.
